April Fools and Spring Break

The kids decided that it would be fun to plan a trip for me to Tokyo. It is kind of an ongoing joke in the house, when the kids ask where we are going or where I have been I routinely answer Tokyo. Dayna and the gang thought that I should actually go to Tokyo, so they did some research and put together this clever Tokyo encounter. They made costumes out of table clothes and put skewers in their hair. They looked up a few cultural dances, made Top Ramen and played games in the backyard that kids in Japan typically play. 

The main event came after a delicious Top Ramen dinner, it was the big Sumo match between Dax and Dayna, it was preceded by a parade involving different characters from Japan, or so I was told. The whole thing was very creative, they started by giving me a boarding pass to a flight to Tokyo and ushered me into the cherry blossom hall where they did their dance. It was a great start to their spring break.

Dax's tournament in Reardan

If you're asking yourself where in the heck is Readan, you're not alone. I had no idea, theres a good reason why most of you haven't heard of Reardan, it ranks up there with the metropolitan areas of Wilkeson and Carbonado. As they announced the names of the teams participating in the tournament, I again was at a loss for where they would be found on a WA state map. It was interesting that on our way home we all of the sudden discovered these tiny farming communities that apparently have the population to support a wrestling club. Towns like Wilbur, Almira, Coulee City, Grand Coulee, Chewaleh (or something like that), Reardan. And there were two ID teams, Sandpoint and Post Falls. Most of the schools were found off of Highway 2 and the towns consisted of a couple silos and a small gas station. Pretty impressive to see how wrestling is popular enough even in the small towns to have a competitive program. 

Dax started off the day searching for some bacon. We named him the bacon beast that morning. We had stayed the night in Spokane in order to avoid the extremely early morning. He weighed in at 52.2 again. His first match was a tough one. He is always a little sluggish right out of the gate, and that works OK for him when his opponent is a little tired too but this time the boy came after Dax and ended up pinning him in the second round. Dax fought hard but he has a hard time fighting off his back for a round just to end up on his back again in the second round. The boy went on to win the tournament and Dax fought hard to win his next 3 matches and placed 3rd. It was good to see him respond to a tough match and then go after the next few guys in order to medal. He is all about the medals now, he thinks that every tournament he enters he should medal, its a good mentality to have but it won't always be like that of course. This next weekend is his last tournament, they call it state, you don't have to qualify for the tournament but it is open to everyone in the state. I get the feeling that it is mostly made up of clubs in central and eastern WA. They said that a couple of years ago they set a record for the most matches wrestled in one day. They had 1500 kids and didn't hand out the last medal until 2am. Dax is in the youngest group so he should be done much earlier than that, the oldest age group is 13-14. He has improved every week and hopefully he continues to have fun this next week, he has a lot of practice this week and hopefully he will learn a move other than the half nelson so he can turn kids that just suck in their elbows and stall out the match like the kid in the video below. It was funny, we were demonstrating moves on the side and he was watching while he was wrestling, it was almost like he could have let the kid go and come talk to us and then return and the kid would be in the same position. Dax was trying to get his head in the kids side and do a bow and arrow cradle but he couldn't quite figure it out. 

River Walk

Sunday was General conference and it was also a beautiful day, we had to get outside and enjoy the Spring sun, we went down to the apple loop trail and the kids were able to stretch out their legs. This was Lani first time outside of the neighborhood on her bike that she got last year. She did really good and only almost crashed a few times. The river is so low right now as they work on the Wapatum Dam, the beach area that you see in the pics below is usually covered by water. The kids found lots of little muscles, I didn't know that the columbia river had little muscles.

Dax found some old glasses that were probably lost in the river years ago but have been recently exposed with the low water. Of course Dayna thought that they looked like Harry Potter glasses.

Lani loves to strike a pose, that is Mission Ridge in the background with a little bit of snow left on it and you can also see the iconic saddle rock. It was a gorgeous day.

Avery got a little too close to the water and got her feet stuck in the mud, when she was falling down she caught herself by putting her hand in the mud, she didn't care much for that so I took her to the water to rinse off her hands, but I couldn't get too close either because it was very muddy and I would sink into it too.